After Seven Years, Housing Certainty for Pro Bono Client

Since 2012, our client had lived in an apartment in Manhattan provided by a private company Housing and Services, Inc. (“HSI”).  HSI offered the apartment through a city program for people suffering from long-term illness.  Our client’s mother was a client of the city program, and our client and her minor child had lived in the apartment with her mother.

In 2016, after a dispute, our client’s mother moved out of the apartment.  As a result, HSI sought to evict our client asserting that she was no longer eligible, under program rules, to stay in the apartment.  Acting pro se at the time, our client filed a discrimination complaint with the New York Division of Human Rights and a complaint in the Southern District of New York alleging federal discrimination claims.

In March 2019, HSI obtained an order of eviction leaving our client and her child subject to immediate removal from their apartment.  Still proceeding pro se, our client filed a motion for a temporary restraining order in her federal discrimination action seeking to stay the eviction.  At the request of the Southern District of New York’s Pro Se Office, Quinn Emanuel agreed—on twenty-four hours’ notice—to represent our client at the hearing the next day. 

Following the hearing, Quinn Emanuel worked with HSI to voluntarily suspend action on the notice of eviction.  When HSI decided to enforce the eviction order again in January 2020, Quinn Emanuel successfully obtained a temporary restraining order and, later, a preliminary injunction from the New York Supreme Court for New York County, staying the eviction for years to follow.

The parties then proceeded to discovery in both the federal discrimination action and the New York state action.  After successfully defeating HSI’s motion for summary judgment in the federal discrimination action, the owner of the building that housed our client’s apartment filed its own eviction proceeding. 

Facing a renewed threat of eviction, our client and HSI entered mediation.  Ultimately, the parties agreed to a favorable settlement for our client which permitted her to remain in the apartment for another six months (and nearly six years since Quinn Emanuel began its representation) along with a cash payment.